


Out of Time

by CosmicMackerel



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28797429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmicMackerel/pseuds/CosmicMackerel
Summary: The Ellimist gets his own equivalent of the Drode, and deals with the ensuing ethical quandries.
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

“Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn his lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy. Now listen.”  
― Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland

I do not remember how I came to be in the service of Crayak. I think perhaps there was a deal, of some kind, but I don’t remember more than that. I don’t remember anything. Perhaps not remembering was part of the deal.

Perhaps it was part of the rules of the Game.

I do not know. A being like me cannot understand the Rules, just as an insect cannot understand the Laws of Physics.

I am not the only servant of Crayak. There are others. There are the Howlers. There is the Drode. Crayak favours the Drode.

He does not favour me.

I tried to resist, the first time he gave me an order, because I found the order abhorrent.

My resistance did not last long.

Now, I live in fear of my Master. I do my utmost to carry out his will. Despite this, I sometimes fail.

Sometimes is never pleasant.

There have been a lot of Sometimeses.

I know I deserve the Sometimeses. I have done terrible things. Crayak likes to remind me of them. He likes to remind me how quickly my moral compunctions disappeared. How easily he wrung them out of me.

He is always there. He is a part of me. He is in me and around me and within me. He knows my thoughts as soon as I think them. Perhaps he knows them before I think them. I have wondered, but he has not told me, and I do not ask.  



	2. Chapter 2

Today is different (though “today” is an incoherent concept, of course). My Master is meeting with the Ellimist.

The Ellimist is the other Player in the Game. 

I have met the Ellimist before, although I have not spoken with him. I’m glad of that fact. Communication with one Almost-All-Powerful Being is bad enough.

They are meeting to barter. To discuss. To make trades. To trade one advantage for another. To make their plays, essentially. I have paid attention many times, and I still do not understand the Game. But I have an idea of the stakes.

They trade in worlds, species, lives. The Ellimist always trying for a Deal that will allow him to save the most of these things. Crayak trying for the opposite.

Today is different, however. Not very different to them, I expect. But different from my perspective. Because today, Crayak trades me.

I don’t know what for. I don’t know what advantage Crayak bought in selling me to the Ellimist. I don’t know what advantage the Ellimist thinks I could give him. Insect trying to understand physics, as I said.

But for whatever reason, I was traded.

And Crayak separates from me. It hurts. 

I do not think it has to hurt. But Crayak would want it to hurt, and so of course it hurts very much.

For a disorienting, terrifying instant, I am alone. I should be glad, of course, that Crayak has removed himself from me. But I am so unused to it. Unused to having a mind that was alone, to not having Crayak’s dark, oppressive awareness as an ever-present constant in my being.

I am not alone for long (and anyway there is no such thing as long. Or short). Only for a moment. A beat. 

And now there is the Ellimist, sinking himself into me. Taking hold of my timeline, weaving it into himself and weaving himself into me, until he knows my thoughts before I think them, until he is a part of me, in me and around me and within me.

And now everything is gone.


	3. Chapter 3

It is sudden. I have physical form. I am in a room. It is a room without doors or windows, but for all that, it is oddly… cosy. There is no other word for it. The floor has a soft coating on it that is a dull brown-red. There is fireplace that is glowing and warm and with real fire in it. There are shelves with different kinds of books on them. The set-up is scholarly, but not academic. In the centre of the room there are two comfortable-looking armchairs.

One is occupied.

The occupant is a being in a blue coat that looks as cosy as the room does. His hair is white and he looks old but not old. He seems comfortable. He is reading a book and does not pay any attention to me. Everything about him is relaxed, languid, _ordinary_ , but his eyes are a bright, sharp blue and seem to somehow burn, and there is not a doubt in my mind as to his identity, but I am too afraid to move and so stand paralyzed, staring.

He continues to read and does not acknowledge me.

I stand frozen for what _seems_ a long time, a terribly long time, sweating with fear, trembling, staring right at him, but all his attention is on his book, and it seems as if it might be the only thing in existence so far as he is concerned.

I begin to understand, after staring and sweating, that the next play is mine, and we will stay like this until I take it. And so, even though I am afraid to do so, even though I do not think I felt so terribly tentative in all my unnaturally extended life, I speak a single, shaking word.

“…Ellimist?”

“Yes.”

The response is a confirmation, not a question. And still he does not look up from his book. His attention, I feel, is entirely on me.

As entirely as such a being’s attention can ever be on any single thing.

Still my play, then. “What… what happens now?” I desperately hope I don’t somehow offend him.

“We talk.”

I wait.

“Come and join me.”

It is the opposite of what I want to do, but it is also clearly an order, so I force myself to move towards him. I’ve spent most of my remembered life around Crayak, and so when I reach the Ellimist, I do what I know to be the only sane thing and drop to my knees in front of him.

“There are two chairs for a reason, you know.” The Ellimist sounds amused. I have heard Crayak sound amused before now, but there is something different in the Ellimist’s amusement. I try to work out what it is. It seems less harsh, somehow. It has mockery, but it is a gentle, teasing mockery. Not like Crayak.

Maybe. Perhaps. But there is something in it that is different, and so I do the insane thing and look up.

I’m met with a face that is _definitely_ amused. He’s smiling at me with one eyebrow raised, eyes glinting as though we’ve just shared a joke. I lose my nerve and look down. I don’t understand, and I say so. To myself, I think that Crayak would never have tolerated such brazen behaviour.

“I am not Crayak.”

I freeze. In fear, not surprise, because of course the Ellimist knows my thoughts better than I do.

“I didn’t think y-”

“It’s alright.”

_What?_

“It’s alright. It’s perfectly understandable. But I am not like Crayak.”

I think about that. I’m still confused, but I’m beginning to understand.

“…I can sit in the chair?” I ask, looking at him.

A nod. A strange, perceptive smile. But I do not move.

“I served Crayak. Against you.”

“Yes.”

“You… you are not..”

“Angry? No. But you think I should be?” The eyebrow climbs higher, the glint in the eyes seems to sharpen. The Ellimist has no need to ask questions, of course. Not to me. But the Ellimist plays games.

“’I’ve acted against everything you want. Everything you Play for.”

“Yes.” The smile invites me to say more.

“It was wrong,” I admit.

“Yes.” The agreement almost breaks me. No absolution. No excuses. Just a blunt, factual statement of truth.

“I was scared!” I shout desperately “He hurt me!” 

“Of course.”

_Of course._ So no absolution, but no blame either?

The Ellimist fights for life. He is kinder than Crayak. He has had no servants in the way that Crayak _has_ the Drode and used to _have_ me. Dare I begin to hope?

“What will you do with me?” I ask, unable to keep the desperate tremors from my voice.

“You will serve me, as you did Crayak.” No, of course not. My head falls. I cannot look at him. Extraordinary, how he manages manage to sound so gentle and yet so final all at once. The Ellimist is as cruel as Crayak, in his own way.

“In my own way”, he agrees. I look up with a start, cursing my stupidity. How could I have let myself think such a thing, when he is always listening? When he cannot _but_ be always listening?

“I cannot free you,” he says, “else I would violate the rules of the Game, and furthermore I have need of you. I do not wish to inflict this on you, but you are not so important as to outweigh the billions who will suffer should Crayak be the victor. Consider it, then, a chance to undo under my command what you have done under Crayak’s, though you should not, I think, feel as guilty as you do for the latter. And yes,” he says, turning his burning eyes upon me, “it is cruel. I shall not apologise, nor ask for your forgiveness, but I promise you this: You need not fear me. I will not torment you as Crayak did. I cannot protect you from horrors, but I shall not inflict them upon you.” His voice grows gentler again. “And I promise you this as well: you need never fear your own thoughts whilst you are with me. I will neither judge nor punish you for them”-I swear I can _hear_ his eyes twinkling- “no matter how critical they might be of myself.”

I don’t know how to respond. Should I _thank him_?

“Unwarranted and unnecessary” comes the reply to my unasked question, “as I’m sure you realise”.

We fall back into silence. I sit at his feet, blinking and bewildered. The Ellimist reads.

“How long do we stay here?” I ask.

“Ah, but there is no such thing as _long_ ,” the Ellimist teases. He looks as though he is trying to suppress a grin. The grin is eventually brought under control, but the twinkle in his eyes remains. He continues: “though you may perceive time as being such. We will leave when you ask.”

“We can stay as-” I pause, think, and then give up-“ _long_ as I want?”

“Yes.”

As long as I want- is he offering me _respite_?

“Warranted and necessary, I believe”, comes the reply. The Ellimist is focused on his book, but it feels as though he is looking directly at me.

There is another silence. “What’s in the books?” I ask.

“What would you _like_ to be in the books?”

I frown at this. Then I get to my feet, walk a few steps, and collapse into the chair.

The Ellimist is still reading, but he smiles.


	4. Chapter 4

The work begins. It is better work than the work I did for Crayak, though I begin to wonder whether better is an illusion just like long. But to me it is better. I work to help the Ellimist save species, and to me that feels good. 

It feels less good when we fail, and must watch Crayak do his altogether more murderous work. The Ellimist is true to his promise- I see horrors still, though I guess he protects me from the worst of it. But I do not fear retribution when I fail. The Ellimist is true to that promise, too.

And when we do win, and the Ellimist laughs his laugh that is as powerful as the dread that flows from Crayak, the laugh that seems to reverberate through all the tendrils of time and space, he shares that laughter with me. As much of it as I can tolerate, at least.

In some ways, he is so very unlike Crayak.

We spend most of our time-although there is no time there- in the non-physical world, the world of timelines, without matter, the world which does not contain but is the code and harmonics of the universe. I see the Ellimist as he truly is, a thing of energy and mind, a weaver of the threads of time and who is yet not himself entirely unwoven. And I see myself as I am, too: a thing bright and small, a tiny spark swallowed by the sun of the Ellimist’s vastness, a tiny bud twined to the branch of a great tree, a timeline held and woven by the weaver into the fabric of his greater tapestry. And for all I am impossibly small and he is vast beyond imagining, for all I am a struggling, flickering ember swallowed by a supernova, he does not eclipse me. I exist. 

It is a thing Crayak would not have allowed me to see. But there is still that which I cannot see. The Ellimist knows all my thoughts, but I am not privy to his, save what he shows to me.  
The Ellimist gives me power. It is not my power, it is his and borrowed, and only what is required for my work and no more, but it is power nonetheless.

In the course of the Game I come to encounter the Drode. The Drode had been cruel to me when I had been Crayak’s, and he is displeased to find me his equal. I am not, and I use that fact to make him suffer as much as I can, within the rules of the Game. The Ellimist disapproves, and understands, and does nothing.

The Ellimist is a manipulator. He pretends to offer choice to lesser beings, but in fact it is always a choice that is no choice. I am not so foolish as to imagine myself exempt from his trickery: but if he acts so, perhaps it is a mercy. For I am in his service and for all his kind acts a command is a command and that fact is made clear. He is the opposite of pitiless and the epitome of merciless, and for my part I know well enough to play my role.

And when unpleasant deeds must be done or bitter messages delivered I do so, for our relationship is clear and no quarter is offered nor expected.

In some ways, he is so very like Crayak.


	5. Chapter 5

The Ellimist is a manipulator, but he is not without compassion. Physical form is offered from time to time (though there is only one Time) as a form of rest for me, an escape from the Game and the existence in that world which I do not and cannot comprehend. Sometimes it is in that room where we first spoke, but other times it is on other worlds and places, and I think that bringing me to these places is also for the Ellimist a kind of game.

Today we are playing one such game and we are on an open, grassy field. I do not know if we are on an existing planet or in a place the Ellimist has created, but he has given us the forms of existing creatures: a species called Andalites. He has been an Andalite before, he tells me.

The air is fresh and clear and the grass grows bright and strong- and tasty, I learn, once the Ellimist has taught me how to eat through my hooves. He has made himself a fine specimen, tall and strong and healthy, whereas I am a small, stumbling thing. I do not ask why he has made himself an adult and me a child. The humour in the elder Andalite’s eyes answers that question well enough.

We run together in the warm sunlight and cool air, drinking fresh water and eating good grass. The older Andalite could outstrip me with ease, but he keeps to my pace, and when I stumble I am steadied with the flat of a large tail blade. We talk and I ask questions and am told stories, and when I try to play at tail-fighting, the Ellimist obliges and plays instructor, and laughingly lets me feel as though I have a chance.

And at the end, when the game is over and the Game must be returned to, I see myself as the Ellimist sees me: A thing small, and unsteady, and so very, very young.


	6. Chapter 6

He always gives a choice to other beings, but as for myself I wonder:

_Ellimist?_

YES.

_Do you ever influence my thoughts, to make me act as you would prefer? Do you control me?_


	7. Chapter 7

“Either this is madness or it is Hell.” “It is neither,” calmly replied the voice of the Sphere, “it is Knowledge; it is Three Dimensions: open your eye once again and try to look steadily.”  
― **Edwin A. Abbott,**[ **Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions**](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/4243538)

The Ellimist is kinder than Crayak. But that does not mean that he is kind. He is cruel, now. But I have brought it upon myself. I have caused this.

It begins as normal- though even normal has long since lost any meaning as a concept for me. I am sent to a planet, the stage for this particular play of the Game. I am given a mission. It is hard.

I fail.

I have failed before, of course. Even the Ellimist often fails. But it is my reason for failure that is the cause of my suffering.

Today, I fail not because of an error, or even because of some element of the randomness that is so ubiquitous to reality.

I fail because I am a coward.

I fail because I have had enough.

I fail because I want out.

I fail because I run, and because I hide.

One cannot _hide_ from a being like the Ellimist.

He knows as soon as I act, of course. Perhaps he knows before. But he can do nothing about it, and so he loses this round.

The people of this world die.

The Ellimist is true to his promise. There is no retribution, no punishment. Crayak would have tortured me for this, inflicted hells and horrors upon my very being. The Ellimist is not like Crayak.

The Ellimist is _so very unlike Crayak_.

The Ellimist does not torture me. He does not harm me. He does not do anything, in fact. He simply leaves me.

Alone.

To watch.

And so I do watch. I watch the dying and the screaming and the parents and the _children_ and I know that I have caused it.

I want to reach out, to undo my mistake, to help them, but I am an incorporeal consciousness and can do nothing. I try to reach out with my power instead of my body, but it is gone. I cannot call out or scream, because I have no mouth.

But my mind screams. It pleads for the Ellimist to help them and when no help is forthcoming it pleads for its own rescue, and is every bit a lost child crying for an adult to come and find them, until my whole consciousness is consumed by the same repetitive pattern:

_Don’t abandon me. Don’t leave me. Please. Help me. Please. I’m sorry. Please. Please. Please._

To no avail. My panic slows, but my desperation is not yet done. I wish to close my eyes, but I have none.

_Please,_ I beg again.

_Forgive me. Mercy._ I have pleaded like this with Crayak, to no avail. Crayak was not one to show clemency.

_You swore you weren’t like him._ _Please. Ellimist. Master-_

-It’s over.

I am in the room again. The Ellimist is with me, in his usual form. I am on my hands and knees, shaking. Saline liquid leaks from my eyes. My respiration- ragged.

“Do you understand?” comes the voice. It is not angry or disapproving or gentle. Only questioning.

“You broke your promise. You said I wouldn’t have to be afraid of you. YOU SAID YOU WOULDN’T HURT ME!”

“I did nothing to you.”

“You _left_ me there! Left me to watch-”

“-the results of your own actions, or lack thereof.”

I fall silent. The _Ellimist_ _did nothing_. _Of course_. The _Ellimist_ did nothing. The implication in that statement is clear, _of course_. He does not need to say anymore. As he well knows. As we _both_ well know. And we each know the other knows. Not because of any space-time-thought-metaphysical links. But because we have reached that point.

“Do you understand?” he asks again, and the voice _is_ gentle now. Repulsive.

“You know exactly how well I understand,” I reply, and add a few choice insults from the language of my species of origin. I’m looking down, but I _feel_ him raise an eyebrow. “I’m not going to say it!” I yell, but he waits, and I know he will wait for as _long_ as it takes and there is no point in trying to win a game of patience with someone who exists outside of time. My stubbornness holds for what feels like an aeon, and then I break and so does my voice: “My suffering isn’t as important as the lives of an entire species, or your filthy Game.”

“Yes,” comes the reply, and it’s even more gentle this time, more gentle than seems possible, and I look up and there’s such a look of _pity_ on his face that I can’t contain myself.

Something snaps. I remember, in spite of my altered nature, in spite of the time spent _outside_ time, in spite of the sophistication of the worlds I’ve lived in, I remember something. Something physical. Something _primitive._

My physical form. The body I am in. It has, like the bodies of many species, _hands_ , appendages at the end of its forelimbs designed to manipulate objects with great dexterity.

That is not the purpose for which I now use them. I close my hands. Fold the fingers together so they are tight enough to turn the hand into a cohesive unit, but not so tight that they will reduce the speed at which my muscles can fire _._

And they do fire.

And I _strike_.

The hand collides with the Ellimist’s “face”, in hope of erasing the pity from it.

It fails, of course. The Ellimist is unaffected. The strike does not move him, does not knock him backward. He makes no sound. But as I strike, I begin to notice that there is liquid on my hands. As my physical body tires, I notice that there is liquid on the Ellimist’s face. Patches of his skin are swelling, growing dark. He is bleeding. He is bruising. My strikes are having an effect. And there can only be one reason that is possible.

Because the Ellimist is _allowing_ it.

My strikes continue, but tears now run down my face. I weaken, and lose my aim, and my strikes become swings and I at last stand exhausted and gasping and weeping and the Ellimist stands bruised and bleeding and unmoved.

I _slump,_ and collapse face first into the Ellimist’s coat, and am supported and lowered gently to the floor, and he lowers himself with me, and my hands grasp the front of his coat, and my created body is shaken with sobs and I’m soaking the front of his coat with my tears.

He allows this also.

My hand lets go of the front of his coat and reaches around him and I cling to him like a child, and he allows this too.

And when my throat is made so ragged from my sobbing I struggle to breath, and my legs are overtaken with trembling, he supports me with one hand and pulls my head onto his shoulder with the other, and, saying nothing, he comforts me.

He pulls back and studies my face with no expression. “Yes,” he says, “it was too much.”

I look down.

I feel something.

On the edge of my consciousness.

Like a great wave.

Like an End.

A Mind.

The Ellimist.

I look up in terror.

“It’s alright,” he tells me.

IT’S ALRIGHT, he tells me.

The approaching Mind slides over my mind like a blanket. Like warm water. Slow.

Too much. Too vast, too old, too much!

“You’ll obliterate me!” I shout, panicked.

He smiles. An eyebrow gently raises.

_NO_ , I WON’T.

“You’ll obliterate me!”

NO.

“But-”

“Shh. It’s alright.” IT’S ALRIGHT. I WILL NOT HARM YOU. THAT WAS MY PROMISE.

I am trembling. The… _envelopment_ continues. And ceases. The Ellimist, without speaking, without using either the vocal cords of his physical body or his true voice, nonetheless tells me that it is alright, that I can relax, that he has me. That he _has_ me. He is everywhere. He is all around me. And I understand.

The Ellimist is _holding_ me. Not just that his physical facsimile of a body that is no more _him_ that the body that I currently inhabit is _me_ or that a great eye is Crayak- but _him_. His being is holding my being, and, somehow, is managing not to crush it.

We stay like that for a long-I have long since given up my attempts at correct terminology- _time_. My trembling ceases. And eventually, I relax. At least, my physical body relaxes. I am still in terror of my own smallness, but I know he will not crush me.

And then.

It comes _inward_ , towards me, from the Entity that surrounds me. Seeping, permeating, unadulterated, pure as a burning star.

Compassion.

More than the universe could contain. Overwhelming.

But I am not overwhelmed.

I see, then, all of the things that had happened since the time I had begun my service under Crayak. I see the good and the bad and the Ellimist sees all of me, and I see that he sees all of me, and the Compassion radiating from him does not waver or change.

Of all the things I have experienced, _this_ comes the closest to breaking me.

But I am not broken.

I look up into the Ellimist’s face and for once it seems open, and there is nothing but kindness in it.

Eventually the Mind fades away.

I let go of him. Stand. Look into his face.

“Never again,” I say, meeting his eyes.

He still kneels on the floor. He looks up. Nods. “Never again,” he agrees gravely.

I come so _very_ close to thanking him.


End file.
